Cut CARBS for weight loss? Or curb FAT? Science now knows the answer

by ken winston caine

If you are battling weight gain, should you cut carbs? Cut fat? Either, neither?

It looks like there really is an easy way to know.

• Cutting refined carbs seems to help every body lose weight and is especially essential for those who pack on the fat around the stomach — the classic spare tire and apple shapes.

• Cutting fat intake results in

effective, short-term weight loss for those who store excess fat in the butt, groin and thighs — the “pear” shape.

This all has to do with how our bodies process insulin — as we were told by the late Dr. Robert Atkins, and Barry Sears and Jack Challem and other nutrition pioneers that the medical and nutritional establishment initially trashed as radicals and mavericks.

A significant body of scientific research has now established that apple-type bodies process insulin one way and pear types another.

Cracking the weight-loss code

Medical science appears to be on the verge of cracking the weight-loss code, or at least clearing away some of the confusion and mystery about it all.

Massive amounts of research and some large human studies (that is studies on large numbers of humans, with many of the studies indeed focused on large humans) have revealed a lot:

• As many as 30 hormones and neuro-physical signaling systems and bio-physical processes are involved in keeping our weight and food cravings in or out of balance. Many of these were not even known a decade ago. Little is still known about most.

• The weight of the food we consume tends to have more to do with our feeling full than does its caloric content. So lower-calorie water-based foods — like fresh fruits and vegetables — are more filling and

satisfying than, say, a doughnut or other rich, high-calorie foods comprised primarily of refined carbohydrates or refined carbs and fat.

• Just like Mama said, we feel full after eating less food when we eat slowly. The body’s satiation signaling system actually is designed to help us fatten up — an important survival strategy for early humankind who never knew when or from where the next meal might come. The body’s innate intelligence seems to encourage quick eating and gorging and when you’re doing that, does not send the “Stop! Enough Already!” signal until you’re overfilled. But when you eat slowly, you trick it a bit and it is likely to tell you that you are beginning to feel full before you’ve stuffed in quite as many helpings.

• Weight, weight, don’t tell me… It appears the 4,000-year-old Ayurvedic spiritual-medical texts had it right. You need a little bit of sweet, sour, bitter, astringent, pungent, and salty with each meal in order to feel satisfied. If you miss any of the “six tastes,” you are likely to continue craving and keep eating or eat again soon. Satisfying the tastes can be as simple as adding a condiment or — for sweets — having a tiny bit of fruit along with with your protein. (Instead of the pie for dessert. Have a taste of fruit during the meal and you’ll find it easier to resist the pie, say the researchers.)

• Carbs or Fat? Apple-shaped people who lose weight by cutting fat intake don’t sustain the weight loss. But if they lose the weight by adopting low-glycemic eating (no fast-burning, insulin-spiking carbs like sugars and refined grains), they tend to keep it off. Pear-shaped people don’t seem to enjoy the same long-term benefit from low-glycemic eating.

• Move, move, move. Those who lose huge amounts of weight and then keep it off are few. The common factor for the successful seems to be exercise. They make regular, concerted physical activity a permanent part of their lifestyle.

The June 11, 2007 issue of Time magazine does a nice job of summarizing some, but not all, of the recent developments in diet research that I’ve mentioned here. See its “Special Health Report: The Science of Appetite — Why we’re hardwired to crave the wrong things — and what new research says we can do about it.”

(Web access to the Time articles may require a sign-up or subscription.)

The Time articles don’t address in any depth the role of fats in satiation. Atkins and Sears and others have demonstrated that including a portion of calories from fat at every meal seems to be essential to staving off hunger cravings.

Challem makes a convincing case about good fats (Omega 3s are big players) vs. bad fats (Omega 6s are major bad guys in this scenario) in maintaining healthy body balance. In his work, he cites tons of science to suggest that many 20th century chronic diseases are the result of a lop-sided balance of fats in our diet that has only gotten more out of whack since the industrial age and with our increased intake of processed foods.